YORK deserves its best ever Christmas. City and business leaders have gone to great lengths to create a truly festive atmosphere.

The St Nicholas Fayre is the first of a series of events which will brighten every weekend until the big day. Extra decorations have lit up the city like never before.

These efforts are for a purpose. The Christmas shopping spree is crucial for traders. If not enough shoppers come to York, businesses and jobs are put at risk.

Yet all this careful preparation was jeopardised by a force out of the retailers' control: roadworks. The gridlock caused by work to improve the Copmanthorpe junction on the A64 threatened to wreck York's Christmas.

So today, there will be many in the city breathing a sigh of relief to learn that the jams will be eased in time for the last three weekends in December.

Unfortunately, any celebrations will be short-lived. The Highways Agency has announced that it cannot provide additional lanes during phase two of the year-long work. That means more months of congestion, guaranteeing Easter and spring Bank Holiday jams.

This is a depressing prospect. Residents face huge disruption. And it is bad news for tourism bosses, already worried about falling numbers of foreign visitors post September 11. The last thing this city needs is another reason for tourists to stay away.

There is too much at stake for York to meekly accept the Highways Agency's edict without protest. City of York Council has the engineering expertise to test the agency's reasons for ruling out both 24-hour working and opening extra lanes. It should do so.

Without pressure from this newspaper and the council, the agency would not have introduced Sunday shifts. It is thanks to this additional work that phase one of the roadworks is now scheduled to end in time for the Christmas rush.

The city must now put the Highways Agency's New Year plans under similar scrutiny.

Updated: 10:44 Friday, November 23, 2001